Third baseman Travis Shaw slugged the first two home runs of his major league career and had four RBIs as the Boston Red Sox overcame another shaky start from Joe Kelly in an 11-7 win over the Tampa...

Shaheen world: No Islamic ties to terrorism

It is one thing to say that Islamic extremists pervert that religion in the name of its terrorism. People have done all manner of terrible things in the name of Christianity as well.

But it is ridiculous, and dangerous, when the Obama administration and its apologists try, for purely political reasons, to ignore any connection at all between the religion and its most radical followers.

Do Obama defenders, like U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, claim that so-called “sharia law’’ is not a form of Islam? Does Sen. Shaheen not understand that a female doctor in Sudan, with family here in Manchester, has been sentenced to be beaten and then executed because she declines to renounce her Christian upbringing?

This is Islamic “sharia law’’ and the fate awaiting Dr. Meriam Yahya Ibrahim Ishag under it should be getting more attention than the protests of Hollywood leftists against a hotel owned by interests from Brunei, another sharia-practicing country.

But if Shaheen’s position on religious law in Sudan is anything like her position on Boko Haram in Nigeria, friends of the Sudanese doctor cannot be encouraged.

Shaheen helped the Obama administration turn back an effort by former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown to have the Boko Haram declared a Foreign Terrorist Organization two years ago, despite its ties with the Al Quaida Islamic terrorists.

That has come back to bite Shaheen, whose attempt last week to claim that Boko Haram was not Islamist would be funny, if it were not so misleading and dangerous.

Shaheen seconded an Obama official who told her Senate committee that it’s “a very important point’’ to note that “Boko Haram’s philosophy is not an Islamic philosophy.’’

Right, and its name, which translates to “Western education is sin,’’ is no more indicative of its beliefs than the fact that it has kidnapped more than 200 Nigerian school girls and announced, via video, that the girls have voluntarily converted to — Islam.